You’re too old.

Too inexperienced.

Too experienced. 

Too this, too that.

Got bills to pay and mouths to feed.

Responsibilities and identities to maintain.

Too uncomfortable to try.

Too comfortable to give up your current life. 

Too weary.

Too afraid.

What if I fail?

What if I can’t win?

What if I throw it all away

And end up with nothing?

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I’ve been there. I am her. She is me. 

A million-and-one reasons – valid – to not do. Playing worst-case scenarios over and over in your mind. Talking yourself out of something that keeps making its way into your heart. 

We don’t get it easy. Things have been set up for us to lose and the little we get, we have to fight tooth and nail to keep and grow. Families to take care of. Responsibilities to handle. We don’t just get up thinking of us. We managed to ‘get out’, to ‘get some things’ and ‘make something’ of ourselves. How many others would kill to be in our position but they can’t because the world makes it known that ‘immigrants not wanted’?

So we should be grateful, right? We managed to make something of ourselves. We managed to push beyond the boundaries that so many face. We know we are lucky because we had it easier than most. Went to the ‘right’ schools and had the ‘means’ to get where we wanted to go.

Yet still, our dreams haunt us day and night. Reminding us of the person we wanted to be and places we wanted to see. We try to shut it with distractions. Coffee dates and full plates. Hangouts and hangovers. Socialising and social media. But it never suffices. 

We see the world as bigger. We see our dreams as broader. We want a fighting chance to realise those dreams. And it’ll kill us if we – on our deathbeds – lie there filled with regret. Of the no’s we told ourselves in fear of what ‘others’ would think. Others who have long gone, don’t think of us and are certainly not holding our hands as we bid farewell to this life.

What if we did it? Full of fear and yet still, fulfilling our deepest desire? If it doesn’t work out – it’s really not the end of the world. You can always begin again. You know why? Because your story has never been written before and you get to change your narrative. 

And what if it does work out? Imagine missing out on true joy. 

Some things are worth fighting for. Especially when you are fighting for your soul. 

This is for us. I am you. You are me. We are she. Let’s choose to write our own destinies.